4 ms·

How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke

23 points by ido 17y ago

jerryji 17y ago
A good reading for anyone who feels bad about being a programmer.
- jm4 17y ago
  Why? So we can feel better about ourselves because some other person found more financial success and still managed to botch it all up? I don't understand this. People read garbage tabloids for the same reason. Why does seeing someone else's hard fall make people feel better about having never achieved their own goals?
  - thetrumanshow 17y ago
    Yes, precisely, and not necessarily because we think they didn't deserve their short-lived wealth, but rather for the same reasons that people prefer relative wealth to absolute wealth (citation needed): Because you can't stand it when others fare better than you. And what's wrong with that? It is the foundation of a healthy competitive spirit which drives people to succeed.
jleyank 17y ago
As Rod the Mod said a long time ago: He's got a lot more money than sense...
patio11 17y ago
Posted here before, but still good. I wonder if this happens to founders? Surely there are some twentysomethings who saw their balance go from three digits to seven in a day. They probably do not have seven kids or a poverty mindset to be unlearned, but surely some have problems.
pj 17y ago
"The solution to the problem is, without a doubt, education," the adviser says. "Change won't happen until grown men start wanting to learn." That sums it up right there and by "it," I mean "all of it." The problem. The problem with our society. The problem with the educational system. The problem with our national debt. With our dependence on foreign oil. Why don't people want to learn anymore? I don't understand why it seems so easy, so obvious, that "this" just isn't the way. Am I the only one frustrated by the continued bad decision making? We sell these poor athletes, and I mean poor in every sense, the illusion of wealth and fame and happiness and then rip the carpet right out from under them. It takes years, decades of dedication to a dream and then they are bankrupt. Not only do they not have the millions they were "promised," but they have no education, no skills applicable outside sports, their bodies are too old to do the only thing they can do. Why do we keep doing this to people? It's really sad. It makes me really sad. What's going to happen? I can't see anything good coming from this. I can't see any good future down this path. It feels so much like the wrong path. I feel like I'm being taken down this bad path against my will. I don't want to go down this path, but it's like I'm stuck in this huge pack of people all stampeding toward a huge cliff and I don't want to run over the cliff. "There's a cliff ahead!!" I yell and no one hears it, they're too busy running, not even knowing where they are going. What am I supposed to do? What are people who don't want to go off the cliff supposed to do?
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  Start a parachute company
  - pj 17y ago
    clever, thanks for that. I need a laugh in this state of mind. :)
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      There are always options. There are always solutions. Sometimes we're not the ones who come up with them, and sometimes we just suffer while somebody else is busy solving problems, but that's life. I look at it like this: taken at an individual level, each person is a precious gift: unique, special, etc. Taken as a group level, as a generic, people are really stupid. Over and over again I've seen really smart people do really dumb things. It's amazing. So when a bunch of PhDs or other smart people do idiotic things, it's not surprising that some hoop-shooter or pigskin jockey would be the same way. We're all stupid, just in different ways. : ) Somehow the race keeps on solving problems anyway.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Over the last decade from time to time I've been trying to figure out how to make contacts in rural America to gain startup funding and these athletes are investing in total crap? Instead of VCs, I should have been pitching football players.
- mahmud 17y ago
  Read the article again. They invest in crap businesses because the ideas are simple and the products they offer are physical. The thinking goes, if the t-shirt company goes I still have the t-shirts which I can autograph and sell. Your idea wouldn't go very well, stick to VCs.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I didn't gather that. I mean, I got the part about Securities are invisible, after all, and if you don't study them, they're unintelligible. Not to mention boring. Inventions, nightclubs, car dealerships and T-shirt companies have an advantage: the thrill of tangibility. But flotation devices for furniture? Inspirational movies? Restaurants? Missing prenuptials? I grant that athletes might tend towards more physical goods, but I'll bet you good money there has been a lot invested in less tangible ones as well. Actually I've given up on VCs for now. Their track records are worse than mine. Bootstrapping is much more logical for technology in this climate.
yardie 17y ago
I'm sorry but I feel really unsympathetic about this story. And I've read basically the same thing in multiple places. You will always find examples of people with the extreme misfortune of having more money than brains. These people are in a special class because nothing you do or say will ever change the outcome. I've sat through the classes as the coach brought in a "life coach" to explain money, contracts, and being an adult. Most will absorb the information and understand. You get the few wayward knuckleheads where nothing matters. If you present a real life case of misfortune they will imagine a scenario where they dance around. Example: Coach: ...this star athlete let his best friend be his money manager. He mishandled it and our athlete was broke and owned the government $100ks in taxes. Knucklehead: That won't happen to me. I'd let my mom handle the money, she's good with numbers. Coach: Son that's not the point. YOU have to be aware of YOUR finances or you could find yourself in the same situation. Knucklehead: Nah, I trust my mom. She'd never do me like that. >> Not the actual conversation but similar. If they were in the 40s or 50s when star athletes were starting to post large numbers I could feel a little sympathy. They might not have known, but if you are in the 20s or 30s chances are someone has given you the speech on protecting your interests first.
tokenadult 17y ago
Is this the same article as the one submitted earlier? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530151 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530151 It sure looks like the same article. It's hard to tell at a glance with this kind of URL, which evidently doesn't trigger duplicate detection.
chollida1 17y ago
I just counted 14 people that I know who did a master's degree. Almost all of them in the Engineering, math or Comp Sci fields. None of those people paid to do it. I wasn't aware that anyone actually paid to do a Masters. I always assumed that grants, scholarships, fellowships and research dollars paid for a masters. Do people, outside of an MBA*, actually pay for their Masters degree?
- RK 17y ago
  Not sure what that has to do with the article, but... Yes, it's pretty common to pay for a master's. A lot of departments will only fund PhD students (automatically). Master's only people usually have to "pay their own way", although that might consist of finding their own research or teaching assistantship, etc.
balding_n_tired 17y ago
Around the house is my grandfather's ca. 1911 yearbook from a midwestern engineering school. I was entertained to read a two page item by the yearbook staff calling for a better sports program to draw attention to the school. The school survives, but probably remains in D III.

23 points by ido 17y ago

jerryji 17y ago

A good reading for anyone who feels bad about being a programmer.

jm4 17y ago
Why? So we can feel better about ourselves because some other person found more financial success and still managed to botch it all up? I don't understand this. People read garbage tabloids for the same reason. Why does seeing someone else's hard fall make people feel better about having never achieved their own goals?
- thetrumanshow 17y ago
  Yes, precisely, and not necessarily because we think they didn't deserve their short-lived wealth, but rather for the same reasons that people prefer relative wealth to absolute wealth (citation needed): Because you can't stand it when others fare better than you. And what's wrong with that? It is the foundation of a healthy competitive spirit which drives people to succeed.

jleyank 17y ago

As Rod the Mod said a long time ago: He's got a lot more money than sense...

patio11 17y ago

Posted here before, but still good. I wonder if this happens to founders? Surely there are some twentysomethings who saw their balance go from three digits to seven in a day. They probably do not have seven kids or a poverty mindset to be unlearned, but surely some have problems.

pj 17y ago

"The solution to the problem is, without a doubt, education," the adviser says. "Change won't happen until grown men start wanting to learn." That sums it up right there and by "it," I mean "all of it." The problem. The problem with our society. The problem with the educational system. The problem with our national debt. With our dependence on foreign oil. Why don't people want to learn anymore? I don't understand why it seems so easy, so obvious, that "this" just isn't the way. Am I the only one frustrated by the continued bad decision making? We sell these poor athletes, and I mean poor in every sense, the illusion of wealth and fame and happiness and then rip the carpet right out from under them. It takes years, decades of dedication to a dream and then they are bankrupt. Not only do they not have the millions they were "promised," but they have no education, no skills applicable outside sports, their bodies are too old to do the only thing they can do. Why do we keep doing this to people? It's really sad. It makes me really sad. What's going to happen? I can't see anything good coming from this. I can't see any good future down this path. It feels so much like the wrong path. I feel like I'm being taken down this bad path against my will. I don't want to go down this path, but it's like I'm stuck in this huge pack of people all stampeding toward a huge cliff and I don't want to run over the cliff. "There's a cliff ahead!!" I yell and no one hears it, they're too busy running, not even knowing where they are going. What am I supposed to do? What are people who don't want to go off the cliff supposed to do?

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Start a parachute company
- pj 17y ago
  clever, thanks for that. I need a laugh in this state of mind. :)
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    There are always options. There are always solutions. Sometimes we're not the ones who come up with them, and sometimes we just suffer while somebody else is busy solving problems, but that's life. I look at it like this: taken at an individual level, each person is a precious gift: unique, special, etc. Taken as a group level, as a generic, people are really stupid. Over and over again I've seen really smart people do really dumb things. It's amazing. So when a bunch of PhDs or other smart people do idiotic things, it's not surprising that some hoop-shooter or pigskin jockey would be the same way. We're all stupid, just in different ways. : ) Somehow the race keeps on solving problems anyway.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Over the last decade from time to time I've been trying to figure out how to make contacts in rural America to gain startup funding and these athletes are investing in total crap? Instead of VCs, I should have been pitching football players.

mahmud 17y ago
Read the article again. They invest in crap businesses because the ideas are simple and the products they offer are physical. The thinking goes, if the t-shirt company goes I still have the t-shirts which I can autograph and sell. Your idea wouldn't go very well, stick to VCs.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I didn't gather that. I mean, I got the part about Securities are invisible, after all, and if you don't study them, they're unintelligible. Not to mention boring. Inventions, nightclubs, car dealerships and T-shirt companies have an advantage: the thrill of tangibility. But flotation devices for furniture? Inspirational movies? Restaurants? Missing prenuptials? I grant that athletes might tend towards more physical goods, but I'll bet you good money there has been a lot invested in less tangible ones as well. Actually I've given up on VCs for now. Their track records are worse than mine. Bootstrapping is much more logical for technology in this climate.

yardie 17y ago

I'm sorry but I feel really unsympathetic about this story. And I've read basically the same thing in multiple places. You will always find examples of people with the extreme misfortune of having more money than brains. These people are in a special class because nothing you do or say will ever change the outcome. I've sat through the classes as the coach brought in a "life coach" to explain money, contracts, and being an adult. Most will absorb the information and understand. You get the few wayward knuckleheads where nothing matters. If you present a real life case of misfortune they will imagine a scenario where they dance around. Example: Coach: ...this star athlete let his best friend be his money manager. He mishandled it and our athlete was broke and owned the government $100ks in taxes. Knucklehead: That won't happen to me. I'd let my mom handle the money, she's good with numbers. Coach: Son that's not the point. YOU have to be aware of YOUR finances or you could find yourself in the same situation. Knucklehead: Nah, I trust my mom. She'd never do me like that. >> Not the actual conversation but similar. If they were in the 40s or 50s when star athletes were starting to post large numbers I could feel a little sympathy. They might not have known, but if you are in the 20s or 30s chances are someone has given you the speech on protecting your interests first.

tokenadult 17y ago

Is this the same article as the one submitted earlier? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530151 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530151 It sure looks like the same article. It's hard to tell at a glance with this kind of URL, which evidently doesn't trigger duplicate detection.

chollida1 17y ago

I just counted 14 people that I know who did a master's degree. Almost all of them in the Engineering, math or Comp Sci fields. None of those people paid to do it. I wasn't aware that anyone actually paid to do a Masters. I always assumed that grants, scholarships, fellowships and research dollars paid for a masters. Do people, outside of an MBA*, actually pay for their Masters degree?

RK 17y ago
Not sure what that has to do with the article, but... Yes, it's pretty common to pay for a master's. A lot of departments will only fund PhD students (automatically). Master's only people usually have to "pay their own way", although that might consist of finding their own research or teaching assistantship, etc.

balding_n_tired 17y ago

Around the house is my grandfather's ca. 1911 yearbook from a midwestern engineering school. I was entertained to read a two page item by the yearbook staff calling for a better sports program to draw attention to the school. The school survives, but probably remains in D III.